


annus mirabilis

by moonatoms



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: AU Meeting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2017-08-31
Packaged: 2018-12-22 05:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11960322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonatoms/pseuds/moonatoms
Summary: Whatever it was, it made him step closer to her and, when she was about to put down the money for her drink – rum and coke, a dreadful concoction – tell her in that smooth voice of his that he liked to use for these sort of moments: “this one’s on the house, darling.”Or also: what if Lucifer came to Earth about ten years earlier and met Chloe at Lux shortly after her father's death?





	annus mirabilis

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Antarctic_Echoes, as always. Honestly, I owe you a ton (how about free medical check-ups until the end of time?)

She didn’t want to be here.

Darkness, light, too much of both, bodies moving to the hollow beat, hoping to connect, hoping to forget, the air full of emptiness and heartache and in its midst, specks of life.

She didn’t want to be here and yet she _was_ , glass in hand, more rum than coke, beads of sweat dancing across sticky skin, feeling too hot and yet not feeling enough.

There was a void inside her that this couldn’t fix, and yet she couldn’t help but try because here she might feel empty but the nothingness inside her apartment was much worse. At least here, she too could attempt to forget, could escape the grasp of time if only for a few hours. Tick, tock, it never stopped, hadn’t when she most needed it to and now, now she only wished it would pass faster.

She took another swig of her drink, tried not to grimace as the liquid ran down her throat, burned and burned, her throat scraped raw from the alcohol and nicotine.

This wasn’t her, never had been, Miss Goody-Two-Shoes, never late, always prepared, even when she took her top off for a movie but maybe it _was_ , now that the world turned differently even if she knew it was still the same.

The harshness of life had never touched her before, and now it held her, strong and steady, unwilling to let go. She hadn’t fought, had succumbed to it, consumed by anger and grief and if only, _if only_ she could turn back the clocks of time, undo her mistakes, all the tiny missteps that she was sure had let her here, to this dark club in the middle of the night.

If only she could bring her father back.

But she couldn’t, couldn’t she?

Time didn’t have a choice but to keep moving, and neither did she.

So here she was at 11pm, rum in hand, trying to melt into the world around her and move, dance, like a puppet with an invisible master, arms and legs, turning, turning until everything was spinning and the world didn’t exist, she didn’t exist.

It didn’t bring her the relief she sought. But it could make life seem less stagnant, if only for a few minutes.

 

* * *

They fascinated him, humans.

Fickle little things, ephemeral as the air itself and yet so animated and resolute. They came in all shapes and forms and colours, every soul with its own story and path, one that was _not_ decided for them. Unlike him, whose entire existence had been carefully laid out before him with no room for decisions or mistakes.

So he had done the only thing he could think of in the face of this, had rebelled and consequently been banished to rule hell for all of eternity, judging over those humans he now watched as they went through their short lives, most of them unaware or just uncaring of what awaited them after their death.

He pitied them and envied them at the same time. He was endlessly fascinated by them and yet few could hold his interest for long. He enjoyed listening to their little stories, so insignificant in the vast expanse of the universe and yet so life-changing for the ones telling them, loved drawing out their desires and bringing them pleasure, but also bored of them so easily.

Still, he had never felt more alive than here, among them.

Every day was new, every person he met different and yet they were all so very similar in their dreams and desires. Money, beauty, power, he could count the things that drove most of them on one hand, which made it all the more exciting when he met someone who was _truly_ peculiar, who did not want any of those things. And most of them were so unhappy, unable to create the life they truly wished for themselves, seeking pleasure in things like clubs and alcohol and sex, hoping to feel _alive_ , hoping to forget their mundane lives for an hour or an entire night.

And he enjoyed coaxing them out of their shells. Showing them pleasure, tempting them to take something from this world that seemingly demanded so much, reduced them to the timid, dull creatures they seemed to become during the day.

Turning his head slowly, he let his eyes roam over the crowd. It wasn’t hard to find someone, and usually fairly easy to draw out their desires. He enjoyed the more complicated ones, souls whose pieces were intrinsically woven into a tapestry that he would never be able to unravel fully. The ones who were not constantly told by society that they were beautiful. Hair, skin, limbs, the symmetry of a face – those were not things that interested him, but it was what lay beneath, the soul of a person, that attracted him. And a truly interesting one was often harder to find.

A small cough next to him broke him out of his thoughts, blue eyes meeting his as she motioned for the bartender.

She was delicate, just skin and bones and long plain blonde hair, mouth set in a line and eyes emotionless.

Listening to her order with one ear, he watched the way her hair fell into her face as she talked, slender fingers moving quickly to tame it and capture it behind her ear.

In retrospect, he wouldn’t be able to piece together what had fascinated him about her. She was just another face in the sea of many, beautiful, sure, but many people were and she wasn’t the only one with a haunted look in her eyes and a story to tell. But there was something beyond all of this that captured him, maybe it was a quiet sense of foreboding, a whisper of an idea in his mind that there was something else about her that set her apart from the rest.

Whatever it was, it made him step closer to her and, when she was about to put down the money for her drink – rum and coke, a dreadful concoction – tell her in that smooth voice of his that he liked to use for these sort of moments: “this one’s on the house, darling.”

A smile combined with the voice was usually all it took but to his complete and utter astonishment, she only raised her eyebrows at him in annoyance and put a 20$ note on the counter.

“No, thank you”, she said simply, eyes gleaming and voice made of steel. “I can pay for my own drink.”

And, before he had a chance to react, she walked – _sauntered_ – away from him and towards the sea of moving bodies.

It didn’t take him long to catch up with her. Brows furrowed he’d stared after her for all of five seconds before deciding that no, this wouldn’t do. He’d stared at his fingers for a bit, lines of skin and bones, long and pale as ever and had even looked at himself in the reflective surface of his liquor cabinet to let his devil eyes glow and make sure that he was still _him_ . To his relief his eyes were still as fiery as ever and he found himself a bit lost because he could say with one-hundred-percent certainty that something like this had _never_ happened to him before.

Desire was his thing, his gift, he could elicit it like no-one else on any of the planes of the universe, could coax it out of even the most complicated of people and nobody had ever turned him down before. Of course sometimes it took a bit longer for someone to catch on but this, this flat-out refusal? That was new.

He looked towards the people, moving, dancing, a tapestry of colours and life that had so much and yet so little in common with each other, both fascinating and boring but rarely challenging for him and knew that he had to know _more_.

About her, and why she was able to resist him when nobody else could.

So, he followed her. He was about to make his presence known when she pre-empted him, turning towards him with a sharp glare.

“Are you honestly following me right now?” she asked in an exasperated tone and he gave her his best innocent smile, but her glare didn’t wane. “I told you ‘no’. So let me spell it out for you again: I’m not interested.”

“Yes and I am honestly baffled by that.” He explained seriously and with no small amount of fascination, but she only rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“Are you trying to tell me nobody has ever turned you down before?” she inquired with a raised eyebrow and he nodded quickly, because it was the truth.

“The opposite, actually. People are usually quite interested in me, it can be a bit of a pain to ward them off.”

She shook her head at that, tiny motions that sent her hair flying, long strands of blonde that looked like gold in the light.

“Oh good, you’re one of those”, she replied with a fake smile that barely stretched her lips.

“I can guarantee you there is nobody quite like me.” He said simply but her answering glare still only held disdain.

“And so modest, too.” She said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Well, on the off chance of actually being the first person to do so: I am not interested in you, pal. So for the love of God, please leave me alone.”

He raised his hands in defense. “There’s no need to bring my Father into this, my dear.”

“You’re so weird.” Shaking her head again, she folded her arms as well as she could with her drink still in hand and looked him straight in the eye. “And I am definitely not your _dear_. Now if you’re so popular with the ladies, why don’t you find someone else to bother, shouldn’t be too hard.”

She gestured around the room with her free hand before giving him another fake smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Have a good evening”, she said simply and with that she turned around again, ready to disappear into the crowd.

“Wait”, he called out to her before she’d taken a single step and to his astonishment she actually _stopped_ dead in her tracks.

“I didn’t mean any offence and I certainly did not mean to bother you”, he stated, swallowing when she shot him a glare. Honestly, these sort of things were _not_ supposed to work on him.

“And I promise I will leave you alone afterwards if you want me to, but I’d like to ask you one simple question before I do.”

She sighed deeply. “If it’s one of those creepy, sexual – “

“No”, he interjected quickly. “It’s a very simple question, really.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest again, but relented.

“Fine. But one question. And you leave me alone after that.”

He smiled brightly. “Of course, dear. A deal’s a deal.”

He didn’t expect he’d have to honour his part of the deal. It didn’t count if she suddenly decided she _didn’t_ want him to leave her alone.

Still smiling, he leaned forward a bit. “So tell me, what is it you really desire?”

Blinking in surprise, she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her chest.

“That’s it?” she asked, honestly more confused than annoyed. “That’s your question?”

He didn’t reply, just nodded his head quickly, eyes staying focused on hers the entire time, trying to decipher what he saw inside.

“Okay, you’re starting to creep me out, I’m leaving.” She said after another 20 seconds had passed without a word, couldn’t help but smirk as his face morphed into something that could best be described as a mixture of pure shock and a pout.

“But you never answered the question”, he pointed out and she shrugged her shoulders innocently.

“I never said I would,” she stated simply. “I only said you could ask me.”

That elicited a smile from him. “Oh, cunning. Lucifer likes.”

She snorted at that and shook her head again, no longer able to find this weird encounter anything but amusing.

“That’s your name? Well, it seems fitting, I guess, oh Master of Temptation.” Biting her lip, she sobered a bit. “Anyway, you got to ask your question and now I get my part of the deal. You will leave me alone?”

He gave her an affirmative nod, tried to keep his face devoid of emotions. A deal was a deal after all, and he’d never been one to break them, had never really needed or wanted to, until right now. He’d never really had to work for it, never had to try hard to uncover the different layers of a person but with her he did and it was scary but it was also exhilarating.

But a deal was a deal and free will was something he honoured above all. It wasn’t his place to tell her to stay, to keep talking to him when she clearly didn’t want to.

“And to think that this could have been the start of a beautiful friendship”, he merely said, swallowing down all of the other things that were on the tip of his tongue.

Her lips stretched and curved into a beautiful, real smile. She stepped closer until they were almost touching, standing up on her tiptoes so they were almost face to face, blue eyes meeting black counterparts.

“Goodbye, Lucifer”, she almost purred into his ear, before turning around quickly and vanishing into the crowd that swallowed her whole within seconds.

 

* * *

Hours later, 2am in the morning, the music was dying down and she’d long stumbled home, through dark alleyways and bright city lights to her bed and the loneliness that awaited her. She’d remember him for a little while still because of how _weird_ the entire thing had been, but then she’d become a cop and his face would morph into that of countless others in a long line of peculiar encounters that made up her life.

He however would not. For all of the billions of years that he had spent in existence and the many that would still follow he had never met someone who was able to resist his charms like her and for a long time, he remained determined to find her.

Until he finally did, on the day that dreams were shattered by bullets and his suit got soaked in the blood of his friend.

She didn’t recognize him at first and he couldn’t place where he’d encountered her before, but it didn’t take long for him to remember once they had started talking.

“Oh God, it’s you, that weird guy from that party.” She exclaimed when she had finally figured it out, too, halfway through the case, when he once again asked her what it was she desired. By then he’d already known for a bit, but had thought it better to keep it to himself, unsure if this would just make her shut him out again.

“Please keep Father out of this, dear”, he retorted with a wide grin because he hadn’t had this much fun in _forever_ and also he finally had a name and an _in_ and hopefully a chance to figure this all out.

She glared at him, breathing life into the memory he still had of that exact same glare many years ago.

“For the record, you’re still weird”, she stated as she got into the car. “And don’t call me ‘dear’.”

“Of course, darling,” he said, and smiled.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm well aware the legal drinking age in the US is 21, but I am also well aware many people do not care ;)


End file.
